Bradley Wiggins's brief ownership of the maglia rosa as race leader of
the Giro d'Italia ended unluckily when he was the unwitting victim of two
large scale crashes in a chaotic second stage, raced on poorly marshalled
roads, between Amsterdam and Utrecht.

Safe from harm: Tyler Farrar stole stage two in Utrecht following a mass pile-up seven kilometres from the linePhoto: REUTERS

By Brendan Gallagher

9:00PM BST 09 May 2010

Wiggins, who took the leaders jersey with a magnificent win in the opening stage on Saturday, recovered from the first crash and was paced back to the peloton by Team Sky colleagues, but the second mass pile up 6.4km from the finishing line took him and many others out of contention.

Avoiding the late crash was Tyler Farrar, with the American getting up to win the sprint in fine style form Matt Gross and Fabio Sabitini.

The Garmin-Transitions rider was another who crashed much earlier but had had time to regain contact. Avoiding all the trouble was Britain's David Millar who now lies fifth in overall generall classification just four seconds behind leader Cadel Evans.

Meanwhile, Thor Hushovd, who narrowly pipped Mark Cavendish for the green jersey at the Tour de France last year, faces a race against time to make this year's race after breaking his collar bone in a training accident in Italy.

Hushovd was in collision with a young girl, crossing the road, will undergo an operation at the CrossKlinik in Basel on Monday. The girl is understood to have escaped uninjured.